The European Commission has hosted a roundtable with industry stakeholders as part of its market investigation into cloud computing services under the Digital Markets Act, the organisation said.
The meeting brought together cloud providers, business users, software providers and technical experts to discuss practices that may affect “contestability and fairness” in cloud markets, the Commission announced on Wednesday.
Talks focused on interoperability and technical features, financial conditions, and contractual and commercial practices.
Participants also discussed technical, commercial and regulatory approaches that could reduce barriers to switching between cloud providers, facilitate interoperability — the ability of different systems to work together — and strengthen customer choice.
Part of a wider fact-finding exercise
The roundtable is part of the Commission’s fact-finding exercise to assess whether current Digital Markets Act obligations are effective in addressing practices that limit competitiveness or are unfair in the cloud sector.
The Commission said the views shared at the roundtable will feed into its assessment, alongside evidence gathered throughout the investigation.
It noted that the market investigation is separate from the Commission’s pending investigations into the potential designation of two cloud providers.
A report setting out the Commission’s findings is due within 18 months of the investigation being opened — by May 2027 at the latest.
